Divorcing Jack (5 page)

The daily paper and the Sunday paper were put together by two distinctive groups of journalists and editors who enjoyed an occasionally friendly rivalry. I was a columnist for the daily and a sub on the Sunday, so I fell between both camps. Sometimes they all hated me, and distrusted me, other times they all loved me, and distrusted me. But they seemed to like what I wrote, apart from those who didn't.

I was late. Sloth and Slow Ltd.

Paul McDowell, editor of the Sunday, saw me slope in. There were five or six disks sitting by my terminal, all of them containing football reports.

McDowell was thin and pale-skinned; he looked kind of wasted even though he was an abstemious Christian. I knew rockers who'd OD on every drug they knew to get an effortlessly decadent look like his. He shuffled over as I took my seat and switched the screen on.

'Hi, Paul,' I said.

'About time.'

'Sorry.' I pointed to my face. 'Bit of an accident.'

'You okay? What happened?' Car.'

'Glad you could still come in.'

'Wouldn't have missed it.' Paul was a real softie for most of the time, but when the occasion demanded it he could run the tightest ship in the country. I flashed him a painful smile and turned to the screen. Half an hour was enough to turn them into English, then I dropped them down to the process operator to be run out for lay-out on the stone. It could have all been done on my own computer screen with a little extra investment, but times were hard and the unions were causing trouble.

While I waited for the stories to appear on the stone I wandered into an empty office and phoned Patricia's parents in Portstewart.

Her dad answered, his voice ragged.

'Hi, Joe,' I said, 'it's Dan. Your throat sounds bad.'

'It is bad. Bloody sea air.'

'You'd be better off down here.'

'Don't I know it.'

'Is Patricia there?'

'Aye, I'll get her,' he said and then hesitated for a moment. 'Listen, Dan, everything all right?'

'Sure.'

'She seemed a bit.. .'

'Upset?'

'Yeah, upset. She hasn't said, of course, but it's nothing serious, is it?'

'Nah, Joe, never worry. Y'know women. Wrong time of the, if you get my drift.'

I could almost hear him nodding at the other end of the phone. And to think I was once equality officer for the NUJ.

'Ah. Understood. I'll get her for you.'

I heard the receiver being set down and her dad limping away on the hardwood floor of their cottage. I could just about hear the wind whistling in the background.

More footsteps and - 'What?'

'Now, there's a pleasant greeting.'

'What do you expect?'

'What about "Hello, darling, missing you terribly"?'

'Catch yourself on.'

She wasn't finding me terribly amusing. I tried another tack.

'I'm missing you.'

'I noticed that last night.'

'That was nothing.'

'You mean there's worse.'

'No, I don't mean that. It was stupid. You know how plastered I was. I'd just been sick in the bathroom. She just grabbed me.'

'Sure.'

'Honestly. Jesus, Patricia, I could have been kissing a Jack Russell for all I knew. It shouldn't have happened, I know that. I'm sorry. Jesus, if you could see the state of my face you'd know I've already paid the price for it.'

'It serves you right.'

'I know.'

There was a moment of silence. I said: 'Will you come home?'

Silence still, then: 'I don't know, Dan.' Again: 'I don't know.'

'Jesus, Patricia, over a wee kiss. You've done as bad yourself for Christ's sake.'

'It's not just her. Look - I just need a bit of time away from you, and this is as good a time as any when I have a bit of an excuse. I just... feel like I should be doing something else. We need to change. We're getting older, Dan, and we're still running around like kids.'

It is too easy to argue with loved ones. That is the attraction of strangers. You're on your best behaviour. I bit my lip. 'Patricia, look, I'm not going to suddenly develop an interest in bloody gardening. I'm not thirty yet. You're not twenty-eight yet. We are young. Jesus, 'Trish - we've gotta have a good time while we can - you never know when that giant piano is going to fall on us from the sky.'

'I know that. You've always said that. It's just that I don't know if what we're doing constitutes having a good time. Drinking, dancing, having a laugh, is that a good time if you do it every single bloody week with exactly the same bloody people? You saw last night what it can lead to.'

'Well, what do you want to do? Stay in Portstewart? It's where old people go to die.'

'Of course not. I don't know. But that's why I'm here. I want to have a think. Just a wee think. Give me a few days, eh? Then we'll talk. Just a few days.'

'Do you still love me?'

'You know I do.'

'Good.'

'You still love me?'

'Yeah.'

'Okay then.'

Paul McDowell appeared at the office door and signalled me back to the stone, I nodded and stood up from the edge of the desk where I'd been sitting.

'I'll have to go. I'm in work. I'm needed. Someone needs me.'

'Okay. Oh - Dan? Did you sleep with her?'

Sneaky. Suspicious. Tread softly.

'Don't be ridiculous. I hardly knew her.'

'Well, where did you stay all night?'

'I tramped the streets for a while until the blood stopped.' Easy, go easy. 'Then I went round to wait for Mouse to come home. You know I did. I always do when we have a fight.'

There was another pause. She said quietly, 'I'll see you.'

'Bye, love,' I said and put the phone down.

I should have left it at walking the streets. Always the tendency to say too much. Glancing up, I saw McDowell had his back to me out at the stone, so I tapped in another number.

Mouse answered. He said: 'YES?'

'Hi, Mouse. It's me.'

‘AH, MR POPULARITY.'

'Very funny.'

'I'M SERIOUS. WE HAD TO RESTRAIN PATRICIA FROM TAKING A CARVING KNIFE TO YOU.'

'Yeah, well, these things happen.'

'NOT TO ME THEY DON'T.'

Mouse never argued with his wife. I wouldn't argue with her either. She wasn't large or particularly overbearing, but she had a presence that was unnerving, a mental strength that enabled her to beat me at arm wrestling despite lacking any discernible muscles.

'Listen,' I said, 'I need you to do me a favour. If Patricia calls can you tell her I stayed in your place last night? It's important.'

'LOVE TO HELP, DAN. PATRICIA CALLED FIRST THING THIS MORNING, LOOKING FOR YOU. UNFORTUNATELY MANDY GOT TO THE PHONE BEFORE ME AND TOLD HER SHE HADN'T SEEN YOU. I WOULD, OF COURSE, HAVE HAD THE PRESENCE OF MIND TO SAY THAT YOU'D BEEN AND GONE. BUT I DIDN'T HAVE THE CHANCE.'

'Shit,' I said.

'SORRY,' Mouse said, and added: 'DAN, NO HARM TO YOU, LIKE, BUT YOU SHOULDN'T MESS AROUND WITH WEE DOLLS. IT'S DANGEROUS.'

'Thanks, Mouse,' I said, 'I'll bear that in mind,' and put the phone down.

I'd have to think about this one.

Out on the stone things were progressing more quickly than normal, but I knew it wouldn't be long until some unfortunate occurrence pushed things into overtime. It happened every week without fail. The workers liked their overtime pay and didn't appreciate the benefits of getting the paper out earlier and improving circulation. Too long term. Within the next hour or so somebody would accidentally overload a computer, wipe out a disk or cause a power failure. The management knew all about it but couldn't do anything. It had always been like that.

The front page lead was fairly tame. A chapel had been burnt in the north of the city, not far from Margaret's home off the Antrim Road.

As I stood by the front page I said to Miller, who was pasting the story in, 'So they've burnt another one.' It paid to keep in with the workers. There was a photograph beside it with the charred building in the background and a priest carrying several planks of wood in front of it. There was no caption on it. I said: 'What's he up to?'

Miller said: 'He's building a temporary one.'

'Good idea,' I said, nodding sagely.

'They're all temporary,' said Miller, turning narrowed eyes from the page to me.

'Right on,' I said and moved. We still had to do some work on the bigot front.

From the front page. Miller shouted up the stone, 'Paul, I need a wee piece of single column.'

Behind me a voice replied, 'I bet that's what your wife says too.'

'At least mine speaks to me,' Miller replied and laughter rumbled over the assembled workforce.

After work I bought a carry-out and went home. I sat in front of the box and watched a late-night film. Sylvester Stallone was in it. My old da always referred to him as Victor Stallion. For that matter he always called boxer George Foreman, George Formby. And once accused javelin thrower Tessa Sanderson of throwing a harpoon. And then I thought about Patricia again and how much I was missing her and how I'd dug my own grave over the phone.

Was all this wondering about her life just a reaction to me kissing someone, or had she been thinking this for a long time? I'd thought we were okay. Sure, things could be better. Every marriage could be better. She'd come round. Just because I wasn't at Mouse's didn't mean I slept with the girl.

And then I thought about Margaret. Young. Innocent, yet plainly experienced. Alone, perhaps, tonight. No, I told myself.

Charles Parker was two inches over six foot and built like a heavyweight, more Holyfield than Tyson. He wore a dark suit with narrow lapels and his trousers were very slightly flared. His shoes were brown leather, scuffed at the front. His hair, although clearly receding, was cut short. I was an hour and a half late arriving at the Europa. Illness, self-inflicted. Rolling Rock.

I put out my hand and he shook it warmly.

'You'll be Mr Starkey,' he said. A soft voice, curiously at odds with his appearance. The Whip and Saddle bar where we were standing is part of the Europa Hotel, the biggest hotel in Belfast. It was and is known as the most bombed hotel in Europe, an over-used description and rather misleading. Not that many European hotels get bombed.

I nodded. 'Sorry I'm late. Got held up.' I pointed to my face . ..

'What happened to you? You look like shit.'

'I always look like shit. Car accident. The prescribed medicine is an Irish whiskey. That should really be your introduction to Northern Ireland.'

He smiled widely and signalled to the barman. 'Nothing I like better than getting straight into some research, Mr Starkey.'

'My pleasure to be your guide, Mr Parker.' He ordered two drinks and we adjourned to a side table of the bar overlooking Great Victoria Street. 'You're from Boston, right?'

'I work in Boston. I'm from New York.'

'Big Irish interest in Boston, isn't there? Keen to see peace break out over here, I suppose.'

'You could say that.'

He lifted his glass to me, swirling the half-finished drink. 'It's made nearby, I understand,' he said.

'Aye. Up the road. Bushmills. It's popular with tourists.'

'I've had it before - but I'll have to admit it tastes better in Ireland.'

'Like Guinness tastes better in Dublin. And stick to calling it Northern Ireland, although you'll hear variations. If you're a Loyalist you'll call it Ulster, if you're a Nationalist you call it the North of Ireland or the Six Counties, if you're the British Government you call it the Province.'

'And what do you call it, Mr Starkey?'

'Home.'

Parker came complete with a fancy hire car, a grey Saab which I drove round the city for him. I took him the usual terror tour, up the Falls Road to see the Republican wall murals, up the Shankill to see the Protestant equivalent, past the shipyard, out to the old government buildings at Stormont and finally down to City Hall. He looked underwhelmed by it all.

'Smaller than I thought,' he said.

'Lowest crime figures in the UK.'

'Unless you count all the killings.'

'Mmmm. You could say that.'

Around 6 p.m. I nosed the Saab into a car park in front of the BBC's headquarters on Ormeau Avenue where I'd arranged for us to watch an interview with prime minister elect Brinn being recorded. I thought he might find it interesting.

'Will I have a chance to speak to Brinn?'

'No. Not today. I'm working on that. Maybe tomorrow, maybe the day after. You in a rush?'

'No rush, just keen.'

'Keen is my middle name,' I said.

We were checked and searched by three elderly security men at the entrance and two of them guided us to a lift. They gave Parker a wary glance as he stepped into it. 'You know there are only about six black families in the whole of Ireland?' I asked him, punching the floor number.

I smiled pleasantly at the security guards as the door slid across. They glared back.

We were met at the top of the stairs by a small grey-haired woman immaculately dressed in a light-green trouser suit. Kay McCrory. She'd been in charge of the press office at the BBC since I'd first entered journalism, and for several decades before that.

She introduced herself to Parker, then turned on her heel and led us down a corridor.

'Nice to see you again, Kay,' I said.

'Likewise.'

'How have you been?'

'Fine.'

She opened a door and showed us into a small viewing room. There were a couple of musty-looking settees, a colour TV, and a tray of sandwiches and some bottles of beer and a bottle of wine on a small table in the corner. The TV was switched on. I could see Brinn having make-up applied to his face.

'They're due to start recording in about twenty minutes,' Kay said to Parker, 'and it should last about half an hour. I'll come back towards the end. If you have any questions then about the programme I'll be glad to answer them.'

Parker shook her hand again. 'Thank you for your help,' he said.

'No trouble at all.'

She closed the door behind her without looking at me.

'Good friends, are you?' Parker asked.